


Unlikely

by magicalboymiracle



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: 90 percent of this is naegi monologuing, Alternate Universe - Mastermind, Gen, Mastermind Naegi Makoto, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalboymiracle/pseuds/magicalboymiracle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can see you’re all finding it hard to believe. You’re probably wondering how someone so untalented and ordinary could possibly be the mastermind, right?" He pauses, eyes surveying the courtroom, mouth curved into the same bashful smile he’s accustomed to wearing; it’s a familiar expression to his classmates, and he delights in the way it now makes them flinch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely

**Author's Note:**

> mastermind!naegi au fic. i wrote this late at night and did not proofread. i also had no idea where i was going with this when i began it. enjoy
> 
> dr spoilers! mostly for who’s dead by the end of the game

He doesn’t look like much of a threat, even now that she knows what he is. Small and slender, with hair that sticks up funny in the back and wide, deceptively innocent green eyes; the boy who had come up to her on the first day and awkwardly asked her about her talent; the boy who fainted the first time he saw one of their classmates dead; the boy who had constantly turned to her for help and advice; _this_ is the ultimate threat? The one student among them whose “talent” was nothing more than winning a lottery?

"I can see you’re all finding it hard to believe. You’re probably wondering how someone so untalented and ordinary could possibly be the mastermind, right?" He pauses, eyes surveying the courtroom, mouth curved into the same bashful smile he’s accustomed to wearing; it’s a familiar expression to his classmates, and he delights in the way it now makes them flinch.

"But it’s true! I did all of this! Me! Plain, unremarkable Makoto Naegi, Super High-school Level Good Luck, was the mastermind all along! And here’s the incredible thing—" he pauses to draw breath, the sound audible in the shocked silence following his words "— _I_ was the one giving you hope all along, wasn’t I? Without me, you’d have never made it this far! And, at the same time, it was me driving you all to despair! You see, that’s what hope always leads to in the end. But I suppose you’re all talented enough to have figured that out yourselves, without someone as untalented as me having to explain it to you!”

He giggles, as though he’s just made an excellent joke, and Kirigiri feels a dense knot of hatred contracting in the pit of her stomach.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Asahina jumps in before she can get the words out. “How _could_ you?” The swimmer’s shoulders are shaking with barely suppressed rage; her eyes brim with tears. “How could you _do_ this to us? You killed your classmates; you killed Sakura-chan—”

“ _I_ killed her?” Naegi laughs again, low and quiet this time. “You’ve got that wrong. Sakura Oogami-san killed herself; don’t you remember anything from that trial? As for our other classmates, I didn’t kill a single one of them. That was all you bastards’ doing. I just established the rules for our school life of mutual killing; I didn’t actually do the killing myself! Well, save for the executions, of course. Rules are rules, you know! If Ishimaru-kun was still alive today, I think he might agree.”

"There’s someone else you killed," Kirigiri says, doing her best to keep her voice steady. "My father."

Naegi beams at her. “Your father! That’s right, Kirigiri-san, I nearly forgot about him. But, in my defense, both of us agree that he wasn’t much of one; and, between you and me—” he lowers his voice confidentially “—I don’t think he was much of a headmaster, either. Letting in a student just for having _good luck_? Clearly that was a poor idea. I hope by now he’s learned from his mistakes — oops, forgot again,” he giggles, “he’s dead! _Beary_ sorry about that.” He raises the inert Monobear in front of him, clasping the thing’s lifeless paws together in mock apology.

"H-hey, hang on a second," Hagakure protests. "You’re telling me _you_ were the mastermind all along, Naegi-chi? But that… that just doesn’t make sense, ‘right?”

Kirigiri has never seen disdain on Naegi’s face before, but the emotion is clearly writ across his features now. “Haven’t I explained this?” The boy’s tone is unexpectedly sharp. “Or has it taken you this long to realize I’m not a ghost? By the way—” he turns back to Kirigiri “—thanks for coming to rescue me after I was nearly executed, Kirigiri-san. It was a meaningless gesture, of course, but the hope you must have within you to even attempt such a thing — it’s truly inspiring! I’d expect nothing less from a Super High-school Level student such as yourself.”

"Y-y-you won’t get away with this!" Fukawa stammers, voice trembling. "B-byakuya-sama will—"

"She’s right," Togami says coldly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I vowed to put a stop to the mastermind. I don’t go back on my word."

"How inspiring, Togami-kun! With an attitude like that, you should have been the protagonist!" Naegi clasps his hands together in delight. "But, instead, I got to be both protagonist _and_ antagonist, and you’re just a side character. Despair-inducing, isn’t it? To think that the heir to the Togami conglomerate was defeated by someone so unremarkable — doesn’t it just make you _tremble_ with despair?”

"We aren’t going to give up so easily!" Asahina shouts. "If we band together against you, there’s nothing you can do to—"

Naegi looks suddenly disinterested. “You’re just repeating my own words back at me. Bo-ring.” His eyes light up. “Ah, but you all trusted me so much, didn’t you? You really believed in me — I was your hope, when all along I was bringing you despair! It’s the sort of twist ending one rarely sees, isn’t it? I was so ordinary, but none of this could have been possible without me! I was your friend and your ally and your confidante and your hero and your enemy — I got to play _every_ part! Be whoever I wanted! _Much_ better than having one of your silly Super High-school Level titles and being stuck playing the role of someone as _lame_ as, say, a fortune-teller — don’t you think? Oh—” his face falls abruptly “—now I’m being rude. I shouldn’t have dared to say anything impudent to you super-amazing high school students. You’re all so talented, and I’m just ordinary Makoto Naegi. Who would have ever suspected me?”

He looks around at the stunned faces of his classmates and sees despair in every face, and his heart races; it practically skips a beat each time his vision rests on an empty space where a classmate used to stand. 

Kirigiri breaks the silence. “So your goal was to make us all despair.”

"Ah, I guess so," Naegi says, shrugging. He smiles bashfully again, eyes downcast as if to say, _no big deal._

"Everything you told us about hope was a lie, then."

"No!" Naegi looks up, suddenly vehement. "You don’t understand, Kirigiri-san. Hope and despair are one, you know — two sides of the same coin. So, by increasing your hope, I was only ensuring you’d feel even _more_ despair, in the end!”

"Why?" Kirigiri asks, and there’s an unmistakable catch in her voice — she hopes he won’t notice it, but from the way his eyes light up and his face flushes she knows it hasn’t escaped his attention.

"Why _not_ , Kyouko-chan?”

It’s the first time he’s called her by her first name, and it has the desired effect; she flinches, startled, and turns pale. Naegi’s grin widens; at long last, he’s managing to break her composure.

"To think that all of you Super High-school Level students could be brought to your knees by someone like me… well, that’s enough of a reason for this, isn’t it?"

No one responds. Naegi’s eyes dart quickly around the courtroom again, relishing the expressions of despair on each face.

"It’s been an excellent game," Naegi says, addressing no one in particular, "but now I think it’s over. Don’t you?" he asks, directing the question to the lifeless Monobear.

Lifting the plush bear so everyone can see, he nods its head in agreement.

"Oops," he says, in a tone of mock dismay. "It looks like the two of us just voted the rest of you guilty. Bad luck, punks."

"Guilty of what?"

Naegi meets Kirigiri’s gaze.

"Of boring me. I’m tired of all this. Time for their punishment?" he asks Monobear.

This time, he doesn’t even bother to make the bear nod.

The red button rises on its podium before him; he places one hand lightly upon it, caressing its surface, drinking in the despair he can see brimming in every face; save for one. Kirigiri has regained her composure and is staring at him expressionlessly. If only he could have broken her, gotten her to cry or scream; how despair-inducing it was to see her keeping her stoic mask on till the end! But, he reasons, he _had_ seen it slip for a moment there, and that would have to be enough for him.

He lifts his hand from the button — _there_! he can see their expressions brighten with the hope that he might have changed his mind, that they might, after all, be spared—

—it’s incredible, this mix of hope and despair, he can feel it pounding white-hot through his veins, making his small frame tremble with power—

—Kirigiri’s eyes are wide and her mouth hangs slightly open and, oh, how beautiful it would be for her to die like this—

—he considers a few parting words, but what else is there to say? and then—

Makoto Naegi brings his hand down onto the red button.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written fanfiction since 2011


End file.
